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A group of six individuals from Britain acting for Russia’s Wagner group have been sentenced to prison for igniting a located in London storage unit that was holding humanitarian aid intended for Ukraine.

Sentencing and Roles

Sentencing the men, the presiding judge at the central criminal court remarked that they had orchestrated a “campaign of terrorism and sabotage” in the interests of the Russian state.

Dylan Earl was given a seventeen-year jail term with an extra six-year period on extended licence due to his “primary involvement”. Another defendant, Jake Reeves, a resident of Croydon, South London, was given twelve years in prison with an additional year on supervised release. The offences they admitted resulted in them being the first individuals to be convicted under the 2023 National Security Act.

Jakeem Rose, aged 23, also a Croydon resident, was sentenced to a term of eight years and ten months. Nii Mensah, 23, a Thornton Heath, South London local, was given nine years imprisonment and Ugnius Asmena, who was without a fixed address, was given seven years in prison. The trio were each found guilty of serious fire-setting and received a further year on supervised release by the court.

Ashton Evans drug dealer hailing from Newport, Gwent, was sentenced to nine years with an extra year on supervised release after being convicted of failing to disclose details regarding terrorist acts relating to another plot in the Mayfair area.

Details of the Attack

The deliberate fire on a Leyton-based storage facility in East London endangered sixty fire service personnel and resulted in one million pounds worth of destruction in March last year.

The court heard that the 21-year-old Earl and the 24-year-old Reeves remained in their residences while organising the attack for the Wagner mercenary organization, acting on behalf of the Russian Federation.

The group selected the storage facility because it was being used to supply emergency relief and satellite communication gear to Ukraine.

When the same Ukrainian company was subjected to an arson attack ten days afterward in Madrid, investigators from the Metropolitan Police's anti-terror unit assumed control of the investigation.

Evidence and Further Plans

When Earl was taken into custody, police analysis of his mobile phone revealed he had videos of the storage facility blaze being initiated and was in communication with the Wagner organization on the Telegram messaging app, via an user profile with the usernames ‘Privet Bot’ and ‘Lucky Strike’.

Some of the communications indicated that preliminary surveillance for further “missions”, involving arson attacks at a restaurant and wine store in Mayfair district belonging to the Russian dissident Evgeny Chichvarkin had already taken place. The employment of explosive devices to damage buildings was also deliberated.

Investigators discovered that the defendant Earl was also considering the potential abduction of the dissident Chichvarkin and “sending him back to Russia to confront imprisonment”.

The drug dealer from Elmesthorpe in Leicestershire had talked about an additional planned incident in the Czech nation.

In a residence inspection, law enforcement found a flag of Russia, over twenty thousand pounds in currency and cocaine hydrochloride with a street value of approximately thirty-four thousand pounds.

Motivations and Judicial Remarks

The court heard he was a member of multiple channels promoting Russian propaganda and was driven by “simple and ugly greed”.

“This case is about the efforts of the Russian Federation to acquire harmful worldwide sway using social media to recruit disruptors vast distances from Moscow.”

She determined the fire incident had a “link to terrorism” regardless of whether the individuals responsible knew it. The Wagner organization is proscribed by the UK government as a terrorist group.